Copyright & Brightspace (D2L)

Copyright

Copyright rights and responsibilities apply to your use of Brightspace. You have the same education users’ rights teaching in Brightspace that you have in the physical classroom; and the same responsibilities to use content in a manner that meets the conditions set in NSCC Policies and the Copyright Act.

Full copyright protection is the default license attached to works. While facts are not protected by copyright, the expression or representation of facts can be. So be careful, copyright applies to all content you find on the internet (including photographs and visuals) as well as more traditional print and audio-visual sources.

Making a Digital Copy

You can make a digital copy of a print resource to load into Brightspace when:

Links

Sharing links to content on the web (as an alternative to copying) is a recommended practice as long as the content on the website does not infringe copyright. Was the content:

Posted by the copyright owner or;

With the permission of the copyright owner.

Loading Recorded Lessons

Educational institutions can transmit lessons to students in real time over the Internet or make a recording of a lesson and post it on-line. However, there is a requirement to remove access to the recorded lessons within 30 days of students enrolled in the course receiving their final evaluations.

When the course is finished, instructors should remove their lessons and content from Brightspace, and save the files in a private location. When the course is offered again, create a new class in Brightspace and load the saved content. You may reuse the saved versions of lessons from previous courses.

Digital Locks

A digital lock is a technological protection measure (a password, or encryption) that restricts access to the content with the objective of protecting the content from copying.

The Copyright Act prohibits breaking a digital lock. Always! The presence of a digital lock trumps all other rights.

DVDs

Many instructors have DVDs that they show in their physical classrooms and want to continue to use the resource in their Brightspace courses. Most DVDs are protected by digital locks. This means DVDs cannot be copied or converted to a format compatible with Brightspace.

Audio Visual Options

Use streaming video. Streaming video can be linked to or embedded into your Brightspace class.

You do not need to evaluate whether you can use the content. Your use is covered by a license.

Streaming video on the web -- Lots of great options.

When using an open platform like YouTube make sure the video it is not an infringing copy.

How do you do that?
A simple test is to look at who posted it. Was it posted by or with permission from the copyright owner?

Need help in figuring out who posted the content? Contact the Copyright office or your Campus Library for support.

Brightspace Copyright Folder

Track your use of copyright-protected of content in this folder.
Don't have a copyright folder? Watch the short (under 2 minutes) video titled Add a Copyright Folder to Manage Files to learn how to create your copyright folder.

The closing off of Brightspace courses 30 days after the course has been completed is necessary in order to comply with legislative requirements in the Canadian Copyright Act. The expanded users rights we have, to use copyright-protected content for educational purposes, comes with a set of legislated responsibilities including:

30.01(6)(a) destroy any fixation of the lesson within 30 days after the day on which the students who are enrolled in the course to which the lesson relates have received their final course evaluations;… (Copyright Act of Canada)

It is important to note that we don’t destroy courses, we remove access rights to the course. Students can and are encouraged to download content (from the courses they are registered in) they wish to save for their own personal use.

Closing off the courses also provides protection for the creators/instructors. Courses often contain learning materials that are used under contracts or permissions that have fixed terms or conditions for use. The closing off of courses helps ensure that the conditions for using content are met; an important risk management tool providing protection to both faculty and the College.

A tool to help you track the content you are uploading into a Brightspace course. Use this tool to record any copyright-protected material used. Then load the file into your Brightspace copyright folder.